Tap DJ

Tap DJ Review

by on February 22, 2011

This app is for the budding DJ so underground he doesn’t even need any equipment or records. Once loaded, Tap DJ presents you with two record platters and a bevy of knobs, sliders and faders to create your handheld megamix. Load up tracks from your iPod and you can fade them in and out, blend them together or slaughter them with a selection of awful samples (has a track ever been improved by the addition of a man shouting “ladies and gentlemen” over the top?).

There are some really nice small touches: the tone arm drags closer to the centre of the record as it plays, and there’s a red mark on both turntables at 12 o’clock as a visual guide for cueing up a mix or scratching. The two records also respond instantly to the touch, and rotating them slowly with a finger plays a slowed-down or speeded-up version of the track, not some cheap scratching sound effect. The app even takes the album art from the selected track and displays it on the record’s label.

There’s only feature keeping this app from being truly great, but it’s a biggy. There’s no beat counter, making it basically impossible to beatmatch the two tracks and mix them smoothly. As it stands, all you can do is fade the second track in and adjust it on the fly, which results in a sound like a pack of horses storming round a tumble dryer as the beats drop in and out of sync. Furthermore, the pitch sliders are tiny, so fixing the problem is nigh on impossible.

It’s a shame to see such a well-designed app stumble at the last fence, but without the beatcounter, you really do get what you pay for.

Download this app: Tap DJ for iPhone

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